Heres a work in progress of a model im working on for my showreel.
He currently stands at 2720 tri's and will have 2x512 textures for diffuse and 2x512 specular. This is my first proper attempt at a game character. Feel free to comment as I make this guy.

dunno about the proportions.
he doesn't really look like a midget.
(how can i say this without being nasty to midgets?)
they seem to have odd proprtions.
they have normal sized heads, which look far too big for their bodies.
and they have short arms.
just going from memory here so i could be wrong (thinking "wee man" from jackass)

cheers!!

hmm looking at the pic again perhaps you have got it right afterall.

blackwood

07-13-2005, 11:31 AM

looks like the first version of gordon freeman :O

You got me intrigued here. Do you mean an early concept scetch or the actual freeman that we see in half life 1?

ROB_BEDDALL - Cheers, but now I think about, I've been making him more like a dwarf than a midget. I'd rather he looked like a really short man rather then someone with a growth problem. He's gonna be evil, i dont want people to feel sorry for him!

I hope this isnt offending anyone... I just had a flashback to an episode of 'the office'.

Gareth: "so whats an elf then?"

blackwood

07-14-2005, 08:20 AM

Heres where I got to last night. I'm gonna adjust the coat a little now that i've added the collar, it looks a bit flat. I'm also tempted tp add more detail to his feet as those are meant to be plastic bags over his shoes. The thing thats bugging me is the creases on the shoulders. Can someone advise me on a way to fix this that would be good for animating?

Prs-Phil

07-14-2005, 10:48 AM

Ah yes, cool idea

He seems about 6 heads high, I might reduce that to 5 because he looks like he is more in a transitional period between beeing small and growing up, I think the tendence should be clearly towards small.

You are useing alot of geometry in places where you will never see it or that don't need that amount. Forget most of the polys on the chest under the jacket, the player will never see that, let the texture do the job there. If you really want that mouthprotectionthingy (or whatever it is called ;) ) I would leave it as a serpate object so that he can take it on and off wich would look really cool.
The sleeve is also way to detailed, make it more as one mass.

Trun the legs and the feet a bit outwards, looks more natural. (a minor minus when rigging but it will pay off)

The shoes seem a bit flat, give them more volume and a more precice form.

It looks a bit like he is pulling his shoulders upward and back a bit, relax them a bit more, let his arms seem looser, he looks like he has just been stabbed in the back ;)

His forearm looks a bit swolen. The muscles there don't create the volume of the forearm in a way like that. Http://www.fineart.sk can help you out here with anatomy refs.

The face is a bit boring, he seems just uninsteresting (the nose is a bit to long, the cheeks to flat, mouth not wide enough, eyesockets to streight, the forehead to round - anatomieissues). Play a bit with the proportions in the face, what would make him look really evil ?

I´ve quickly scetched something to show you what I mean (just a rough image, hopefully you can see what I mean with spacing and form of head)

http://pu-art.com/help/evildoctor.jpg

- Phil

blackwood

07-15-2005, 08:21 AM

Had a quick re-jig last night.

Phil - I was looking to do most of the stuff you said, your message was re-assuring that im going in the right direction with this. I think the proportions should be more midget-like He looked like a cross between silent bob and one of the seven dwarfs.

Most notable changes: head size, evil face, mask is now seperate but does not intersect body (im not sure if that sort of thing still causes issues with game renders?).

Still looking to fix the arms.

blackwood

08-03-2005, 08:15 AM

Been busy, but gone back to this guy now.

Started the texturing. Not sure how im gonna do the beard or coat yet, but i'll cross that hurdle when i come to it. This is the first character model I've ever textured properly. I must have been tweaking some vertices last night when i was tired, because i've screwed up the fingers now. I'll fix those tonight.

C'mon guys and gals, you've got to be able to spot something wrong with this...

Tonight I plan on finishing off the head with more wrinkles and better eyebrows then i start work on the body. The last thing to do will be the blood... oh yes.

SHEPEIRO

09-29-2005, 11:54 AM

texture is looking good.

i think the coat should be blood splatered. like hes just come out of surgery, and dosnt wash. other than that i cant think of how give it more detail, apart from drawing on the creases/fold.

FabioMSilva

09-29-2005, 12:02 PM

seems to me that the white coat is too flat. some texture wrinckles would do miracles to it.

blackwood

09-29-2005, 12:30 PM

Cheers SHEPEIRO, Iim thinking lots of blood on the gloves and a few splatters on the chest.

The Solid Snake: The coat and mask are what I hope to get done tonight.

scorpion007

09-29-2005, 12:35 PM

He has no expression on his face - he needs to look CrAzY! :twisted: Doesn't look psycho enough to me at the moment.

Maybe make some evil grin for him.

utchamp

09-29-2005, 05:32 PM

hey, looks nice.

the nose needs to be shorter and maybe have a hook to it... it also needs to come up into the forhead a little...... maybe this will help clarify.

the_podman

09-29-2005, 10:26 PM

I think before you get too deep into the texturing, the shoulder and arms need to be reworked a bit. Right now, they don't have any kind of sillouette and the character will only "read" well with Max's/Maya's nice lighting, but in a vertex lighting situation, you'll need more defined shapes. The arms almost look like Bender's(from Futurama) making me feel like he's a robot.

Phil's right about the forearms, they "taper" inwards towards the wrist and since the "thumb" is pointing towards the screen, the forearm is in it's "twist" posture. I've found that I get better deformation if I "twist" the polys to flow in the same manner as the muscles.

...However, this IS supposed to be a midget, and I guess a lot of these anatomy issues don't apply but I feel the character would look better with the tweaks anyhew..

Man, this has got to be the most non-pc thread I've posted in ;)

http://www.rodbrett.com/docMOD.jpg

DeadBoy

09-30-2005, 01:32 AM

I'm sure you were already planning on this, but how about a few props like a stethoscope hanging around his neck, or pens/scalpels in his front pocket? I also thought it might be funny to have him wearing patient scrubs underneath his doctors coat (like he's a mental patient posing as a doctor), but that's just my opinion.

I like this character concept, would love to see him animated. Keep it up...:thumbsup:

DeadBoy

[EDIT] PS: Do they make doctors' scrubs for the vertically challenged?:) Maybe have them be a bit oversized? They look fine as they are, but just in case...

blackwood

09-30-2005, 11:33 AM

cheers scorpion007, utchamp and the_podman.

I think I'll be tweaking some polys later.

No stethoscope in the pipeline, I dont want to have to animate something dangling round his neck. But I have decided to model a hacksaw that he will swing about in one of the animations. Unless anyone has a better idea for a weapon?

SHEPEIRO

09-30-2005, 11:45 AM

have you seen tose hand held circular saw type knife/blades that surgens use, taht would look viciuos,

blackwood

10-06-2005, 10:40 AM

O.K. I need help.

How do I make realistic looking blood? I know it will look better when I add the specular, but this is tough. I feel a little like i'm ruining the model right now by painting this red over it.

http://img359.imageshack.us/img359/1070/doc8kn.jpg

SHEPEIRO

10-06-2005, 10:48 AM

ok its too blended and too light coloured.

try darkening it making it almost black where its thickest. also instead onf blended into cloting it should be bitty, and splatted over clothing. think globbules of jelly

I have some wicked blood splat textures i made at home with some PVA glue,red Indian Ink, and jelly, it was quite expensive, and messy, but i still use the photos today, try making your own.
red wine can also get good effects if you get the right typre which is nice and red, rather than purple. bit of a 3waste, but if you have any old, open(off) dregs, throw them on a non porus white surface and photograph.

blackwood

10-06-2005, 11:23 AM

I like the sound of this. My digital camera is getting charged up.

I'm off to buy some supplies to make my own blood tonight.
Then I'll freak out my housemates when they find a 'bloodsoaked' white shirt and surgical gloves in the bin!

SHEPEIRO

10-06-2005, 12:06 PM

do it in the bath room and leave the evidence for when your faltmates get home, theyll think Pyscho has been round your house for afternoon tea and scones. mmmm with jam on, oh yeah red berry jam, with bits in, really gruesome. use this as well.

blackwood

10-07-2005, 08:58 AM

Well, that was fun.

Nearly done the texture maps, what do you guys think? More blood? ;)

http://img371.imageshack.us/img371/8964/doc4jx.jpg

SHEPEIRO

10-07-2005, 09:47 AM

how did it go with the mess, did it work well.

i have alittle crity on the face of the doctor, i thingk his beard is way too tidy, mess up that outline a bit. i like the marks on his head that you can see in close up, but you need to up the contrast on these to see them from normal veiw.

Mio

10-07-2005, 10:27 AM

well done

but i think the white coat need more detail... something like blood....some kind of dirty...
:wavey:

blackwood

10-11-2005, 08:52 AM

Specular maps have now been done:

http://img449.imageshack.us/img449/4632/doc37xy.jpg

SHEPEIRO

10-11-2005, 09:05 AM

you still need to add some more dirt and darker areas of blood, the coat is just tooo clean, some blobs of bile, and guts should do it.

Headless

10-11-2005, 10:40 AM

Heh, I like this model. :)

For blood, one thing to try is to see if you can get a photo of some paint splatter, desaturate the image, and then stick that in a channel in Photoshop. You can then CTRL-click the channel which will give you a splatter selection, which you can then fill in with a suitably deep red on a new layer. You may need to invert, or mess with the contrast of your paint splatter channel so that you get the right kind of selection, but don't mess with it too much or you'll lose all the detail.

The great thing with this method is that besides the big blobs of red, you get all the little speckles too.

blackwood

10-14-2005, 08:39 AM

I'm gonna call it a day on ths model. I'm pretty happy with this. 3 months of my spare time has been used up and now its time to rig him. I'll be using charatcer studio for the first time in 2 years, so its time to rediscover animation again after spending so much time as an object modeller.

Maybe I shoud start a thread in the anim wip forum?

http://img294.imageshack.us/img294/7711/surgeon9ms.jpg

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